Millennials – sigh…everyone loves to gang up on Millennials. They are impatient; short attention spans; too demanding. Whether that is true in life (and as a Millennial I say it isn’t!) it can certainly be true in the way Millennials interact with technology. Millennials grew up with computers and cell phones so they are used to using technology to make things simpler.

This also means Millennials aren’t as wowed by technology and expect a lot more from it. A Millennial will abandon a web page if it takes too long to load or isn’t visually appealing, will prefer texting to calling, and will google rather then ask a question. This has led companies to change the way they do business, from offering online ordering of pizza to instant messaging customer service.

But Millennials aren’t just your customers they are your employees. Millennials currently make up the largest workforce in Canada, so like it or not you may need to make some of those same changes for your organization.

Here are some ways you can use the lessons learned from your millennial customers for your millennial employees:

Put it online– On demand access is key for Millennials who tend not to keep to strict working hours as other generations have. Most companies have an intranet site for HR forms, benefit information, policies, etc. Use these spots for things like e-learning, video demos, or provide other information to keep your Millennials engaged.

Make it interactive– It isn’t enough to just have a location where you place resources online, those resources need to serve a purpose and allow the user to interact. Things like forms that are submitted at the push of a button rather than completed and attached to an email are far more user friendly and efficient.

A Gallup research report found that 85% of Millennials use the Internet on their phone rather than a laptop1, so ensure you have a mobile experience to match your desktop experience.

Make it easy, streamlined and attractive. There is a saying regarding Millennials – everything I want, nothing I don’t. Millennials are so good with technology there can sometimes be a misguided sense that they can just ‘figure it out’. The truth is yes, they probably can figure out where to find the info they need, or a way to work through a glitchy website- but they won’t. Keep in mind Millennials come from a world of competing technology, so if one website isn’t working they will just abandon it for a better experience. Make sure the steps required for any task are clear and upfront, only provide the information needed, and avoid pages with too much scrolling.

Consider mobile. With any software developed consider the mobile experience. A Gallup research report found that 85% of Millennials use the Internet on their phone rather than a laptop1, so ensure you have a mobile experience to match your desktop experience.

Know when technology won’t work. There is a misconception that technology is all Millennials are interested in, which isn’t the case. Millennials look to technology to make their work simpler, but they still look to their workplace as a place for emotional connection. That same Gallup research report found that Millennial employees are more engaged and satisfied in the workplace when they have regular feedback and meetings with their managers.

Summary

Before you bemoan the changes you might need to make I suggest this- it’s a good thing. Millennials reach for technology first but by doing so they are helping you create internal efficiencies. Online absence reporting doesn’t just save you from having to field phone calls, it allows you to automatically notify anyone affected by an absence, ensure proper coverage all while tracking the data allowing you to find trends- with no additional work.

Beyond that, while it may be Millennials that push you to develop new technologies they are really just the catalyst for change that everyone can enjoy. Facebook may have been started for college kids, but now even your grandpa can post status updates.

1“How Millennials Want to Work and Live” (2016) Gallup.com http://www.gallup.com/reports/189830/millennials-work-live.aspx

Victoria Pearce, Communications Manager, has been with Morneau Shepell for over 12 years with progressive roles around communications and project management. For the past 6 years she has focused extensively on supporting the Absence Management practice though various strategic projects and creative problem solving.

I live in St. Charles, Missouri, right in the part of America country music singers always sing about. My family and I moved here in 2013. About a year later my mom passed away, and my wife and I needed to leave town and take care of her funeral. Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford to bring our kids on such short notice.

Despite knowing very few people in our new community, the entire neighborhood stepped up. Our kids spent a week going from house to house, getting consoled with unlimited mac n’ cheese and Netflix. People here in our adopted hometown look out for each other.

I learned that again the following year.

My wife, who was a stay-at-home mom for 12 years, started volunteering at our community’s startup incubator. A short while later she was hired to be the incubator manager. Valuing the transferrable skills of a stay-at-home mom is a progressive, uncommon employment practice, and for our family it happened in a conservative community in one of the reddest states on the map.

The people of Red-State America aren’t Neanderthals.

My wife isn’t chained to a stove.

My Republican neighbor doesn’t have a welcome mat with a swastika on it.

But some of my neighbors can be just as guilty of thinking of their counterparts in other parts of the country in similarly simplistic terms.

This past December I appeared on Patriot Radio, a conservative channel on Sirius XM. During the show the host kept referring to Democrats as “coastal elites.” Hearing the host use the term made me think of my very liberal brother. He lives in Seattle, but he is no one’s idea of a “coastal elite.” He attends Seattle Seahawks games with his giant beard dyed neon green. He manages an auto parts store and builds hot rods on the side. You will never hear my brother use terms like “safe space” or “trigger word.”

My brother didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because he wanted to see vanilla ice cream, Chevy trucks, and all else that is good and holy about America banned. In fact, my brother likes vanilla ice cream and owns a Chevy truck. My brother voted for Hillary Clinton for the same reason my neighbor voted for Trump: he believed she was the candidate who best spoke to his concerns.

Even if they didn’t know he was my brother, my Republican neighbors have never shown an inclination to take out one of their multiple firearms and start shooting at him, nor has my brother ever shown a desire to make his way to Missouri and force my Catholic, conservative neighbor to liquidate his 401(k) and give all the money to Planned Parenthood.

You wouldn’t know that from listening to our present political rhetoric. On a regular basis politicians, pundits, bloggers, and a whole lot of regular people use political dialogue laden with references to war and violence—including Senator Rand Paul’s tweet from a year ago that suggested the Second Amendment exists specifically to shoot at the government.

This week the violent rhetoric became more than just mere words with the shooting of Republican congressman Steve Scalise. The shooter, James Hodgkinson, was apparently motivated by his political beliefs and, according to sources, carried a list of Republican legislators he hoped to assassinate. Of course, the heated left/right divide is not solely a feature of American politics. Last year Jo Cox, a British Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament, was murdered by Thomas Muir. Cox was killed because of her stance on political issues, including Brexit.

My wife isn’t chained to a stove. My Republican neighbor doesn’t have a welcome mat with a swastika on it. …You wouldn’t know that from listening to our present political rhetoric.

Carl Phillip Gottfried von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist, famously said “War is politics is by other means.” Politics as war has become an increasingly common metaphor. Former House Speaker and sometime Donald Trump advisor Newt Gingrich has frequently made a similar statement: “Politics is war without blood.”

Except when politics becomes war with blood. When political language becomes filled with references to metaphorical violence and war, the risk of actual violence skyrockets.

If things don’t change the violence we currently see directed at politicians—which is bad enough—may end up being directed at targets far easier to kill than politicians: each other.

If we want to stop that from happening, we need to start seeing our neighbors as more than left/right caricatures. We need to see the people we share our communities and country with as actual human beings, and remember that labels like “liberal” or “conservative” can never capture the totality of a human being.

We need to remember that there are red state conservatives who hire stay-at-home moms for tech jobs, and blue state liberals who build hot rods and listen to George Strait—and that it is possible for those people to coexist in the same country without hating one another.

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I could not let Men’s Health Week — celebrated each year as the week leading up to and including Father’s Day — draw to a close without writing a post about this important observance. The idea is to explore “the different ways men and boys are managing to keep healthy, physically and emotionally, in a busy and sometimes challenging world.”

June is also Men’s Health Month, and the intent is very similar: “to heighten the awareness of preventable health problems and encourage early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys.”

Foremost among health concerns, in my estimation, is men’s mental well-being. Men are four times more likely to die by suicide than women, and suicide is the second-leading cause of death among men ages 25-34. Further, Mental Health America reports that male depression goes undiagnosed 50 to 65 percent of the time.

Since men are taught from little on to suppress our feelings, lest we appear weak, should this be surprising? Fortunately, strides are becoming made toward overcoming this long-time stigma to depression screenings and other assistance. Dr. Rich Mahogany, part Dr. Phil and part Ron “the Anchorman” Burgundy, was created to “man up” mental health and help working-age men think about their emotional problems from a different perspective.

The tools offered by Man Therapy provide employee assistance and other professionals with an innovative method to reach men who might not otherwise use mental health services. One such catch-phrase of Man Therapy reads, “You can’t fix your mental health with duct tape.”

Why am I passionate about this subject you might ask? Good question. First, I had a good friend who took his life in 2008, and so I can relate all too well about how mental health all-too-often remains overlooked in our culture. He still jogged each day and was in much better physical condition than the rest of us high school buddies. No middle age paunch for him! But his death went to show that one can appear to be fine on the outside, when that is not the case whatsoever below the surface.

Millions of men are silently struggling on the inside, and they do not have a way of talking about it. Millions of men and women are aware that something may be wrong with the men they know and care about, but they do not know how to talk with men about it. As a result, we’ve all tacitly agreed that “Doing fine. Can’t complain” is one of the few appropriate responses to the question, “How’s it going?” – Michael Addis, PhD

Second, while I fortunately did not fall to the depths my friend did, I too know what it is like to have inner demons to deal with. I have written on this blog before about being diagnosed with depression and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) in 2002. I am convinced that this discovery – through divine intervention, and correspondingly an EAP – kept me from a nervous breakdown (or worse).

While it is very unfortunate that my friend did not end up receiving the help that I did, perhaps one of the reasons I am still here is to tell others about the importance of mental health screenings. Some still say this shows a man as being “weak.” Poppycock. I would go to the other extreme; that is, seeking help is actually a sign of strength in showing that you suspect something is wrong and you want to do something about it. And, I might add, not just for yourself, but to improve the quality of life of your loved ones as well! You might think, “That is just the way I am, there’s nothing wrong with me” but what does it hurt to get “checked out”?

But don’t just take my word for it. Many experts recognize the need for men to overcome the stigma of discussing their feelings and seeking assistance when necessary. “Men’s silence and invisibility have become so common that we treat them as normal, rather than seeing them for what they are: major social problems that can be remedied if we understand where they come from and take the right steps to change them,” writes Michael E. Addis, PhD, author of Invisible Men: Men’s Inner Lives and the Consequences of Silence.

Finally, I can also relate to psychosocial issues because I am not a typical guy in a lot of ways. I am not good with my hands, and I am lucky if I can back my car out of the garage without hitting something, let alone back and maneuver an 18-wheeler. If I was driving a big rig, I would take out tree limbs and power lines! I am also not coordinated enough to “golf” without leaving so many divots it’d make the gopher from Caddyshack look like he didn’t do a single thing to the course in that famous laugh-fest.

While it wasn’t always easy to be “different” I can poke fun at myself now because I finally came to the realization that each of us is a unique male, and this includes our physical and mental attributes.

I’ll conclude on a serious note: Just as workplaces have realized they can make an impact on reducing heart disease by encouraging exercise, they can also make an impact on reducing suicide by promoting mental health and encouraging early identification and intervention.

It’s a scene that has become all too familiar in the workplace: A disgruntled former employee opens fire on a number of workers before killing himself. This unfortunate scenario reared its ugly head again on June 5, when John R. Neumann Jr., 45, who had been fired in April, entered the Fiamma Inc. building in Orlando at roughly 8 a.m. ET and opened fire, according to Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings and USA Today.

Four of the victims, three men and a woman, were found dead at the scene, the sheriff said. Another man died a short time later at a hospital. The body of Neumann, an Army veteran discharged in 1999, was also found at the scene.

Demings said Neumann had previously been accused of assaulting a co-worker but not charged. The victim in that case was not among the victims, he added.

Psychological Tests are Not Reliable

The problem in such cases is that standardized psychological tests are not reliable or valid tools for predicting which persons will be violent, according to Bruce Blythe, an internationally acclaimed crisis management expert and author of Blindsided: A Manager’s Guide to Catastrophic Incidents in the Workplace. “The capability simply doesn’t exist to pick the ‘needle out of the haystack’ through psychological tests and fitness-for-duty exams,” Blythe stated.

While there are no methods that can completely and accurately predict which specific employees are going to become violent in the workplace, various guidelines offer important and defensible considerations for assessing the likelihood of workplace violence.

Warning Signs

Employers and employees need to recognize the warning signs of workplace violence so that everyone can act as eyes and ears to report unusual behavior, according to Mimi Lanfranchi. (At the time of this writing, she was a Senior Vice President with Allied Barton Security Services.)

While there are no methods that can completely and accurately predict which specific employees are going to become violent in the workplace, various guidelines offer important and defensible considerations for assessing the likelihood of workplace violence. According to Blythe these methods include, but are not limited to the following:

* Assessment of potential violence needs to consider the psychological makeup and behavioral tendencies of the threatening person. Questions about anger problems, sense of entitlement, depression, and/or suicide are important. Does the person engage in poor judgment, repeatedly mention violent methods to resolve a personal issue, or demonstrate negative coping skills? Substance abuse is also often correlated with violent offenders. A history of violence is the best predictor of future violence.

* Assessment of potential violence should also include “context” and the evolving situation. Typically, a good starting point is to understand that potentially violent and threatening individuals almost always feel unfairly treated. Are there job problems, especially insubordination? Does the individual overly identify with his/her job position?

* Another important consideration pertains to people who know or have had contact with the threatening individual. A key indicator of intended workplace violence is to assess the “gut level feeling” about violent propensities from people familiar with the individual. Do people in the workplace (or others) feel afraid or intimated by this person? Does the EA professional, management or employees have an intuitive sense that the individual is someone who could become violent in the workplace or elsewhere?

It is also worth noting that, according to Blythe, only 36% of workplace assailants commit suicide. This means that 64% aren’t suicidal enough to kill themselves following violent acts.

This article is not all inclusive of Blythe’s or other professionals’ methods for assessing individuals at risk for violence. Neither should it be construed as legal advice, but as an overview of good business practices.